Pinsonat Talks Jindal, Ethics, Foundation And Regents Stories

Last week, two stories broke that questioned the ethics of the Bobby Jindal administration.

The first dealt with the ethical propiety of a foundation run by Mrs. Supriya JIndal which took in donations from corporations that also contributed to her husband's campaign funds. The chief fundraiser for the campaign also worked for the foundation. Also, some of the corporations involved received favorable decisions by the Administration.

the second story involved Governor Jindal appointing only white men to the Louisiana Board of Regents and all but one of those appointees hace donated to the Jindal campaign.

After the stories broke, Bayoubuzz sent questions to pollster and political analyst, Bernie Pinsonat of SMOR (Southern Media And Opinion Research) to consider the issues and the potential implication of these stories to Governor Bobby Jindal who is running for re-election this year.

Here are the quetions and answers:

Do you think there is any merit to the CREW claim or do you think the organization and/or the New York Times is out to get Governor Jindal?

Governor Bobby is a republican and he obviously has national ambitions. It is not a stretch to claim the New York Times is anti Jindal! As far the merits of the Governor’s wife raising money from companies for charity – who can be against this idea? Every charitable organization has a list they use to raise money – in the case of the Governor’s wife she had the ultimate list. She or someone called companies that were on the governor’s political donor list and of course some of these companies needed state government to approve of some issue that benefited their bottom line. These companies were certainly not going to say no to the wife of the governor.

Most companies would have a hard time saying no to this request, after all this was the wife of Governor Jindal. Alice Foster (wife of Governor Mike Foster) raised money for the refurbishing of the Governor’s Mansion. I am sure she used a similar list and was ultimately very successful.

Mike Foster avoided national politics and had zero ambition to be on Fox News every chance they called – which was never! Jindal on the other hand seeks national attention and should not be surprised by this story coming from the New York Times. This will not be the last negative story on Governor Jindal from national news papers.

What impact, if any, will this story have upon Jindal politically?

This story will not damage Governor Jindal’s reelection outlook. So far this story was a one day news item. The news story of Governor Jindal’s appointments to the Board of Regents has much more potential to hurt Governor Jindal’s national image. Governor Jindal appoints only whites to the Board of Regents, who happen to max out with contributions to his reelection campaign. He replaced the chairman, who was black, none of his new appointments were black anything– in fact the Board of Regents now has zero black members! This ought to go over big nationally! I seriously doubt any republican candidate for president wouldn’t criticize this action by any governor. As far as Jindal’s pledge to change the politics in Louisiana of political appointments - remember this pledge - while I am governor -it is not who you know, it will be based on what you know. Really!